Drugs baron in bid to keep his £542,000 assets

A DRUGS baron who flooded Tyneside with huge quantities of narcotics has launched a bid to keep his ill-gotten gains.

A DRUGS baron who flooded Tyneside with huge quantities of narcotics has launched a bid to keep his ill-gotten gains.

Robert Henson was the ringleader of a £1.5m drugs empire vying to distribute heroin and cannabis across Tyneside.

But Henson was busted after detectives bugged his Volvo and listened in as he boasted to right-hand man Peter Thirlaway how he had more than £600,000 worth of stock and a turnover of £1m.

Now the 62-year-old is challenging an order made by a Crown Court judge that he must forfeit £542,000.

Henson, of Ancroft Garth, High Shincliffe, County Durham, was ordered to pay the cash based on the “totting up” of his assets that were seized.

But his lawyers are now claiming the judge wrongly included £400,000 of cannabis which cannot be considered an “asset”.

Henson accepted he had £142,000 – which included a luxury home in Spain – but said it was unclear whether the judge wanted the £400,000 to be confiscated from the drugs or money made from their sales.

During the High Court hearing, Mr Justice Hedley granted Henson permission to appeal and said his legal team had raised sufficient grounds to justify another hearing.

Henson is currently serving a jail term after being jailed at Newcastle Crown Court in June 2008 for operating an international supply ring which shifted up to half a ton of drugs a week until it was smashed by police surveillance.

When police busted the gang, they uncovered 460 kilos of cannabis blocks stamped with distinctive ‘fish’ or ‘1’ logos, with a street value of more than £500,000.

Henson would call in debts to raise sums of up to £200,000 to buy in shipments from a supplier called “Spanish”.

Newcastle Crown Court heard the gang hid their stash in units on the Bells Close Industrial Estate, in Lemington, and the George Stephenson Estate, Killingworth.

Later they rented a safe house cottage in Winlaton Mill.

Henson was sentenced to 12 years behind bars after admitting conspiracy to supply cannabis.

He was also handed a 10-year jail term, to run concurrently, for conspiracy to supply heroin.

Heroin dealer Samir Dahou was slammed for trickling heroin into Tyneside through the gang from his North West base.

The court heard when the 34-year-old was cornered by police at his Lancashire home, he instantly confessed to his wife. Suitcases stashed at the house revealed compacted heroin with a street value of £1.5m and two semi-automatic guns with silencers.

Dahou, of Doeford Close, Warrington, was sentenced to 14 years in prison, with an additional sentence of six years, to run concurrently, for firearm possession.

The rest of Henson’s runners were also sentenced to time inside totaling more the 71 years.

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